Blog posts for various Communication and Media subjects.

Pebble Mosaic: Information Aggregation

Twitter is the embodiment of democracy. All those little voices swirling around into a collective of human opinion spewing forth the combined thoughts of the people. Systems like Tweetdeck mean that quick rate aggregation can stand in the place of traditional news stories. My experiences using Tweetdeck to track current affairs have often left me more knowledgeable, inform, up to date and engaged than traditional legacy media.

Legacy media only offers a very small packaged account of events that is designed and cropped according to corporation needs. Traditional media also has the unwanted effect of gatekeepers, often bending the facts, that are necessary for a business. Twitter on the other hands has no gatekeepers, instead gatewatch takes place.

Twitter is good because you can both seek certain information that is current while looking for your own info. Tweetdeck is such a good representation of current events as it details different angles and opinions all in way easily digestible stream. As a heavy user of Tweetdeck it’s a ridiculously freeing and invigorating news source.

While 24 hour news media seems to present a similar ideal as twitter it doesn’t work and has an opposite effect. The large amount of news needed to fill up 24/7 coverage means that stories become over covered, over spun and over-sensationalised which in the machine of twitter cannot happen with widespread co-operation.

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One thought on “Pebble Mosaic: Information Aggregation”

This is a really good perspective on twitter and one that should be taken into greater consideration in order for us to understand its true potential. With the ability to aggragate and filter relevant sources from irrelevant, It has revolutionised how we both consume news but also through its major power given to the individual. Its how more and more world events are being chronicled, providing a voice to those otherwise powerless.